


if you had not been my friend

by onetrueobligation



Category: Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 - Malloy, Voyná i mir | War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe — Law, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gay, M/M, Multi, Pining, Polyamory, ambiguous time period, i hope no one reading this is a lawyer because... oh man, i know absolutely nothing about law help, like it could be anywhere from the mid-1900s to modern day, thats the only kind of danatole i know how to write, this was also written as a request
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-04-08 18:08:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14111079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onetrueobligation/pseuds/onetrueobligation
Summary: Anatole Kuragin is in quite a bit of legal trouble. Financially abandoned by his father, he turns to an old friend he hasn’t seen in years for help. Fedya insists that the only reason he’s helping Anatole at all is to see his rival Pierre’s face when he wins a case against him, but is that really all there is to it?Andrey Bolkonsky is suffering through both heartbreak and fury, and is determined to see Anatole brought to justice over what he did, so he turns to his friend, Pierre, who can hardly refuse when he’s asked to defend the person he loves in court. But through that is confusion — what is he supposed to do if he loves Andrey — and Natasha too?*A law AU that a friend requested and I was too enthusiastic about to leave as a one shot.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey everyone! a few notes:
> 
> i. i’m a teen with a bunch of assignments and zero knowledge of my own country’s legal system, let alone the russian one. i’m doing the best research i can, but please excuse any flaws you find. 
> 
> ii. the time period in this is kinda ambiguous. i’m picturing mid-1900s but that might not be entirely consistent. 
> 
> iii. anyone who knows me knows i am r e a l l y bad at keeping up with multi-chapter fics. so if you don’t mind, leave a comment if you enjoy! they really help me power along with my stories, and without them, my fics usually die within the first few chapters. 
> 
> thanks to AGracefulShadow for proofreading this! go check out their work!

Anatole really hadn’t meant to marry that girl. It had all passed in a bit of a blur, really. Both times. He hadn’t meant to marry Natalya Rostova, either, it just sort of… happened.

Of course, he didn’t see Natasha anymore.

He’d never really been a family favourite. Dropping out of law school within the first two weeks isn’t what esteemed sons do, least of all esteemed sons from long family lines of lawyers. His father had certainly not been impressed with that, and eventually, after nearly six years of tolerating his youngest son’s escapades in Petersburg, sent him off to Moscow in the hopes he’d learn a trade or, even better, find a wealthy wife.

Anatole hadn’t had the nerve to tell him that marriage wasn’t on his list of options.

And then there was Natalya Rostova. Gorgeous. Stunning. Engaged. That hadn’t seemed like a problem at the time, not least because he hadn’t actually known who her fiancé was. If he had, he might have thought twice about marrying the betrothed of a Bolkonsky. No one went near anything of the Bolkonsky’s.

And then, Pierre, that miserable oaf, had to go tell everyone about the Polish girl. Brilliant. And now, Anatole was on the verge of ending up in court with Bolkonsky, all because Pierre couldn’t keep his mouth shut. And Anatole was really starting to regret not sticking around in law school.

Not only did Natasha now despise him, but Anatole was facing prison charges, all for one stupid idea that didn’t even last. Well, perhaps prison charges were too extreme, but at the very least, he’d be facing a fine he couldn’t pay. His father would skin him alive if he knew about what had happened, and Helene wouldn’t be able to pay for anything without Pierre knowing about it. He needed a lawyer, but even that was beyond his budget.

One evening, as Anatole sat at a table in his apartment, a half-empty bottle of vodka in one hand and the papers wielding the court dates in threatening black print that had arrived in the mail a week ago, the answer hit him like a lightning bolt.

_Fedya._

His old comrade from Petersburg. Of course. He hadn’t seen him in years — they were supposed to be going to law school together, but Anatole hadn’t stuck around long enough. But, of course, their history went far beyond that. They’d known each other since they were boys. Fedya and Anatole, the little hellions that had wreaked havoc across Petersburg for years. Fedya had to be the answer.

Of course, that was relying on the possibility that Fedya wouldn’t react badly to his old friend he hadn’t spoken to in years suddenly arriving on his doorstep, asking for a favour.

Well, he’d best approach it with discretion.

 

‘You seem tense.’

Andrey cast his tired eyes up to him with such an exasperated, loathing look that Pierre almost stammered.

‘Of course I’m stressed,’ he replied, voice strained with tension and the after-effects of a row of sleepless nights. ‘I want to see the bastard pay for what he did, dammit! What if he wins, Pierre? You know what he’s like. He always gets what he wants.’

Pierre sighed and placed down his bottle with a practiced sort of weariness.

‘Andrey. Listen to me. He’s not going to win.’ He looked up at his friend, hoping to convey sincerity and certainty when in reality, he was never particularly certain about anything at all. ‘He doesn’t even have the money for a lawyer, and even if he did, you know I’m the best in Moscow.’ Well, apart from one particular competitor of his, but he wasn’t about to mention that. Then, he turned his head to one side, trying to calculate Andrey’s expression. ‘There’s something else?’

Andrey groaned and sank further into the couch he was sitting on. ‘You’re too good a friend. You know me too well.’

Pierre reached over and lifted his glasses from the little table at his side, sliding them onto his nose carefully. Andrey’s thoughts and feeling mattered greatly to Pierre, more than the actual court case itself. ‘Tell me.’

Andrey sighed, looking up at Pierre with a miserable expression he knew all too well. ‘I still love her, Pierre. I shouldn’t, but… but I do. And now she’s gone and gotten married to that idiot Kuragin, and I don’t know what to do.’

That struck Pierre with an unwelcome force, and his stomach clenched unpleasantly. Laws, he understood. Laws made sense. Love did not. It didn’t make sense how Andrey could love a woman who betrayed him. It didn’t make sense that Pierre could love a woman who should be Andrey’s. It didn’t make sense how Pierre could love Andrey the same way, and yet in a different way entirely. It didn’t make sense how Pierre loved them both so dearly, and yet never said a word to either.

‘Have another drink,’ he said finally, and Andrey barked a harsh laugh but didn’t need to be told twice.

‘I _will_ win this case for you,’ Pierre said firmly. Kuragin deserved it, the self-righteous peacock. He had no right to take what belonged to others. Pierre may have been useless in a lot of aspects, but when it came to law, he didn’t doubt himself. This was the only chance he had to help Andrey, and he had to take it. For both their sakes’.

 

It hadn’t been difficult to find his childhood friend. Fyodor Ivanovich Dolokhov was Moscow’s most famous — and most expensive — attorney, matched only by Pierre Bezukhov, Anatole’s brother-in-law. In any other case, it would have made sense to ask his sister’s husband for legal assistance first, rather than a friend he hadn’t seen in years, but, coincidentally enough, Pierre happened to be representing Anatole’s enemy. How lucky for him.

Well, if things went well, hopefully Andrey would see he wasn’t the only one who could get his friend’s support in the matter.

The office wasn’t far from Anatole’s building, and it was a pleasant enough day, so he chose to walk, smiling cheerfully at everyone he encounter to try and quell the irritating nerves in his stomach. It would be fine, he assured himself. No one had ever refused him anything, least of all Fedya. He had charm on his side. Who wouldn’t want to defend him in court? With that thought in mind, he made his way with a spring in his step down to the office he knew Fedya worked in.

When he arrived, he pushed open the door and was not met with Fedya’s smiling face at a lone desk in the middle of a room, as he’d expected when playing out the scene in his head, but rather a few nondescript men and women sitting in a clean and dull waiting room, along with a bored-looking secretary at a desk.

‘Excuse me?’ Anatole said, stepping forward hesitantly and faltering at the loathsome look upon the secretary’s face. ‘I—I was looking for Fyodor Dolokhov?’

‘Do you have an appointment scheduled?’ the woman asked in a monotonous drawl.

Anatole winced. ‘Ah, no, but— I’m a friend.’ Hopefully. ‘If you could just mention to him that Anatole Kuragin is here to see him, I’m sure he’d be more than happy to see me,’ he added, confidence crumpling by the second.

The secretary seemed to think this over for a moment. On the one hand, the man before her was almost certainly no friend of Dolokhov’s and the attorney was probably far too busy to see anyone outside of his schedule. On the other hand, it had been a dreadfully boring day, and this strange, jumpy visitor was the most interesting thing that had happened there in at least a week and a half. Besides, she needed to stretch her legs, anyway.

With her most over-the-top, reluctant sigh, she rose from her desk and made to wander down the hall. ‘Please wait here a moment,’ she said in the same, bored tone, wandering down the hall to Dolokhov’s office.

Anatole stood there at the desk, trying to ignore the glares from the other visitors who were almost certainly annoyed that he’d somehow been given more attention from the secretary that any of them. At least, that was the thought he held onto to keep himself feeling at least somewhat confident.

A few moments later, the secretary returned, her face unreadable. ‘He says you’re welcome to go in,’ she said, tone just as dull as before. ‘Down the hall, fourth door on the right.’

Anatole slumped in relief. ‘Thank you,’ he sighed gratefully, wandering into the carpeted hall and scanning the doors as he did so. Just as the secretary had said, the fourth door on the right was engraved with the name _Fyodor Dolokhov_ in italic print. It looked expensive, Anatole thought, unable to avoid a stab of jealousy at how far his friend had come.

He pushed open the door hesitantly, thinking perhaps he’d gotten the wrong Fyodor Dolokhov and his old friend was actually somewhere on the other side of town.

One look at the man sitting at the disarrayed desk told him he certainly hadn’t, but Christ, Fedya had gotten handsome.

‘Anatole!’ Fedya exclaimed, as though he hadn’t already known he was coming. He looked down at the desk, papers askew so the tabletop itself was hardly visible, and attempted to organise it in the space of two or three seconds, resulting in him knocking over a paperweight and catching it just before it fell. Anatole had to bite back a grin. Fedya always had been a little clumsy.

‘Fedya,’ he said, grinning broadly. ‘I haven’t seen you since— God, it feels like forever! What have you been up to all this time?’

Fedya gave a nervous laugh, still trying to rearrange his desk. ‘Oh, you know — graduated law school, became one of the most successful attorneys in Moscow… Nothing much.’

Anatole chuckled and stepped closer, letting the door swing closed behind him. ‘Say, want to trade places? I’m sure my father would love you to be his son.’

‘Oh, no,’ Fedya said gravely. ‘My mother would terrify you out of your wits.’

They both dissolved into laughter. It felt good, Anatole registered vaguely, to laugh with Fedya again. He’d forgotten how close they’d been, before law school, before they’d drifted apart.

‘Well,’ Fedya said, seemingly in a cheerful mood, ‘sit down, sit down.’ He gestured to the chair in front of his desk, and Anatole sank into it, grateful that his reappearance had been so well-received. Fedya had always been rather unpredictable, but he must have enjoyed Anatole’s company more than previously thought. ‘What can I do for you? I’m assuming you didn’t just pop in for a visit?’

Now, it was Anatole’s turn to laugh nervously. ‘Ah— Well,’ he began, scratching the back of his neck nervously, but putting just the right amount of charisma into his tone. ‘You heard about the Natalya Rostova business?’

Fedya’s smile faded. ‘I heard of it, yes. Vague reports, none of the details.’

‘Oh. Well, I— Remember when I told you I married that girl in Poland?’

Fedya groaned and rested his chin in his hands, although it was more good-natured than genuinely annoyed. ‘You didn’t, Tolya.’

He flinched. ‘I, ah… I may have married Rostova. It wasn’t really intentional, but I couldn’t do anything about it. She wouldn’t have gone with me, otherwise. I had to do it, Fedya, or else—‘

‘Alright, alright,’ Fedya laughed, waving him down. ‘You don’t need to give me excuses. I know what you’re like. And I suppose you want to know if the marriage is valid or not?’

Anatole stared at him. Oh. He really had to spell it out for him, then.

‘Uh— No, Fedya, not exactly. See, Rostova had a fiancé at the time, and he… He’s taking me to court, Fedya. Andrey Bolkonsky, you know him? And his lawyer is Pierre Bezukhov, and—‘

‘Wait.’ He held up a hand. ‘Slow down, Anatole. You want _me_ to be your lawyer?’

Anatole gave a hopeful smile. ‘Please?’

Fedya pressed a hand against his temple, closing his eyes exasperatedly. Of course. Anatole Kuragin never spoke to anyone unless he had something to gain from it himself. Undoubtedly, his father had refused to offer him money and he was hoping Fedya would help him for free. But Bolkonsky was fierce, and irritating as he was, Anatole didn’t deserve to be indebted to him for the rest of his life.

And then there was the other issue. Andrey, of course, was being represented by Pierre Bezukhov. Fedya’s rivalry with Bezukhov went far beyond legal matters. The two of them may have been competitors in the world of law, but in truth, Fedya had seen Pierre as a rival ever since he’d begun spending time with Helene Kuragina, Anatole’s equally charming older sister.

Helene was the one who had introduced Fedya and Anatole in the first place, and in their teenage years, their love had been fierce and perfect and, most importantly, secret. Not even Anatole had known. But he and Helene had always known they could never be married. Fedya was nobody. He was from a poor, unheard of family, and the Kuragins wanted their daughter married to the wealthiest suitor possible.

Oh, those feelings for Helene were long gone now, but Fedya couldn’t shake his distaste for Bezukhov, the idiot who’d had his career practically spoon-fed to him. He’d never had to struggle like Fedya had, never had to fight his way to the top like Fedya had. No, that rivalry went far, far beyond law. Always had, always would.

And then there was Helene’s energetic younger brother, not half as smart but every bit as captivating and every bit as talented as getting what he wanted, now sitting before him with that hopeful expression on his face, and Fedya knew what his answer was going to be before he gave it.

Solely because he’d really love to win a case against Bezukhov in court, of course.

‘Alright,’ he huffed reluctantly. ‘I’ll do it. As your friend, and out of the goodness of my heart, I won’t charge you a rouble, but—‘

‘Thank you!’ Within a moment, Anatole had leaned right across the desk and pulled Fedya into a hug. Fedya was certainly not the hugging type, but Anatole really did seem to be able to get away with anything he wanted, damn him. Six years of separation had clearly done nothing to stifle Fedya’s admiration for the child, even though he was beginning to regret letting him into the office in the first place.

‘ _But,_ ’ Fedya repeated emphatically, pushing him back down into his seat gently, ‘I have conditions.’

‘Anything,’ Anatole said, beaming. ‘Anything at all.’

Fedya sighed. ‘When this is over, I don’t want you to just run off and I never see you again. You’re my friend, Anatole, and I like you. You can’t just come and go as you please.’ It sounded almost pathetic to his own ears, and he closed his eyes, resisting the urge to bang his head against the desk. ‘Just— stick around, alright? Be my friend. Like before. You and I used to have a laugh every now and then. Let’s… let’s do that again.’

Anatole blinked. He’d been expecting something a lot more drastic than that.

‘Of course we will, Fedya,’ he said sincerely, giving him a smile. ‘Just as soon as I can get rid of my wives and win against Bolkonsky in court.’

Fedya didn’t know whether to laugh or roll his eyes. Dealing with Anatole Kuragin, he already knew, was certainly going to be more than he bargained for.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the long wait, i’m violently blocked lmao
> 
> i keep trying to make andrey a good person but he always turns out being a bit of a prick

This had to be some nightmare. It really did. It just wasn’t possible. The odds were so unlikely, the chances so slim, and yet—

Of _course_ , out of every damn lawyer in Moscow, Kuragin had to have the only one better than Pierre.

_How?_ No doubt Dolokhov charged just as hefty a fee as every other attorney around, if not more. He was practically famous around those parts. And yet somehow, Kuragin, a penniless idiot, had managed to hire him.

Pierre vaguely remembered a time before he and Dolokhov were rivals, when he used to see him with Helene. It had… angered him, in a way. Dolokhov was interesting, captivating, handsome and everything someone like Helene would want — except rich. That was the one thought that kept Pierre going, when he tried to find any reason at all for his wife to love him.

He didn’t know why it mattered to him so much. He certainly didn’t love her. She was a seducer, and nothing beyond that. And yet, the thought that her mind may still wander to Dolokhov struck a nerve with him that he couldn’t quite explain.

But, he supposed, that made him a hypocrite. Not that that was anything new, but he was a hypocrite nonetheless — he didn’t love his wife, never had. It was blindingly clear, though he’d never admit it, that his heart belonged to someone else. It was just the question of whom that kept him awake at night.

He loved Natasha. He really did, and he’d known it for years, deep down. But then, he loved Andrey. At least, he thought he did. It was so terribly difficult to understand. They loved each other. He loved them both — no, _wanted_ them both. Natasha, the gorgeous, bright-eyed young girl, her youth so unfairly marred by Kuragin’s unworthy hand. And Andrey — almost her polar opposite. He was dark and wise and quiet and thoughtful and everything Pierre wanted to be. But his affection extended beyond admiration, it had to. It wasn’t natural, it wasn’t acceptable, and it certainly wasn’t legal, but Pierre wanted him anyway. There couldn’t possibly be anything dishonourable in the way he loved Andrey, nor the way he loved Natasha.

What really hit him, most of all, was the guilt. Helene was hardly an honourable woman, but didn’t she deserve a husband who could be faithful? _No,_ a small, vengeful voice answered him every time those questions arose in the back of his mind. _She never loved you. Why should you feel obligated to give your heart to a woman who would never do the same?_

And Pierre would find himself caught in a constant loop of what was reasonable and what wasn’t, what he was obligated to give and what he didn’t deserve in return. Such a web of terrible questions was forming in his mind now, as he sat at his desk in his study in a daze, accompanied by a three-quarters-empty bottle of wine, cheap stuff, the kind he bought just to waste.

He should have been reviewing the case. It was supposed to be easy. There’d been no hope of Kuragin winning the case. But now, somehow, he’d managed to get Fyodor Dolokhov himself on his side. Everything was looking a lot more difficult.

He must have dozed off at his desk for a while, as the sky was far darker than he remembered from the last time he’d looked out. The bottle on his desk was now completely empty. Pierre groaned and ran his hands through his hair. He was a disgrace. A wreck. His mind scrambled for someone to blame — Helene, for being an unfaithful wife. Natasha and Andrey, for leaving him confused and distraught. Dolokhov, for always being so calm and collected and detached when Pierre could barely focus with so much else on his mind. Kuragin, for being enough of a fool to get them all caught up in this mess in the first place.

But, as he stood up and sighed, making his way across the hall to his bedroom, where, he wasn’t surprised to see, Helene was nowhere to be found, it was blindingly clear that he had no one to blame but himself.

 

Whispers of what was happening between Bolkonsky and Kuragin were spreading quickly across the city, and it didn’t take long at all for word to reach the Rostovs.

‘I heard that Bezukhov — you girls know our dear Petrushka — is representing Bolkonsky,’ Ilya Rostov said over breakfast one morning at the Akhrosimov residence to his daughter and niece.

‘Oh, how wonderful!’ Sonya said with the false cheer she’d adopted over the past couple of months. She turned to her cousin and gripped her wrist in an attempt to gain a reaction, shaking her a little. ‘Isn’t that wonderful, Natasha?’

Natasha, although the colour had returned to her face and she was eating again, was still rather thin, wispy, and absent from most conversations in thought, even when physically present. A moment too late, she turned to her cousin with a vague look. ‘Yes, I suppose,’ she said, her tone bored and quiet.

Sonya released her friend’s wrist and turned to exchange a concerned and somewhat pained look with her uncle.

‘That’s all very well,’ Marya Dmitrievna began in her deep, booming voice that could have stretched across the entire house, leaning forward over the table and fixing Natasha with a long stare, ‘but I heard, from the Drubestskoy lad, who’d heard it from Anna Scherer herself, that that horrid Kuragin has somehow convinced his old Petersburg comrade, Dolokhov, to defend him. What do you think of that, eh?’ Something almost resembling a smile found its way on her lips, and while the question was directed to the entire table, she didn’t take her eyes off Natasha while she spoke.

Sonya and Ilya both winced at the grating sound of Natasha’s chair being pushed back against the floor. ‘I’d thank you not to speak about my husband in that manner, Aunt,’ she said coldly, eyes blazing despite her feebleness.

Marya Dmitrievna gave a little _pah_ and waved her hand dismissively, but Sonya and Ilya could tell that the damage was done. Natasha, now visibly restraining tears, turned and fled from the breakfast table, and a few moments later, the sound of her bedroom door slamming echoed throughout the house.

‘I should…’ Sonya began, then trailed off and rose from the table with her head lowered, chasing after her cousin.

Ilya just sighed and returned to his meal.

 

In Natasha’s room, Sonya rubbed her hand up and down her cousin’s back while the younger girl sobbed into her hands. It had become a regular occurrence, that whenever Natasha’s reckless husband was mentioned, it would always somehow end with Sonya comforting her while she wept. If Sonya was honest about it, the whole thing was becoming a bit of a chore. ‘Now, Natasha, you’re being silly,’ she said slowly, keeping her tone gentle. ‘No one blames you, not really, and you know Pierre, he’ll get this whole mess sorted out—‘

‘But what if I love him?’ Natasha cried out, and Sonya fell silent. ‘Anatole, my husband, what if I still… care for him?’

Sonya thought for a moment. ‘Well, do you?’

Natasha lifted her head to look at her, momentarily stunned out of tears.

‘I don’t know,’ she said finally, making a pathetic little sound and slumping over to rest her head in Sonya’s lap. With a sigh, Sonya began running her fingers through Natasha’s hair gently.

‘Listen to me, Natasha. I know you. I know you don’t want to be with that man. I know you still love Bolkonsky, as you should. Let Pierre sort it all out. You’ll be free, Kuragin will face the consequences, and this whole matter will sort itself out. You’ll see.’

Natasha didn’t speak for a long time. When she did, her voice had steadied and her tears had stopped.

‘We should go back down,’ she said finally, straightening up.

‘Of course,’ Sonya smiled, gesturing to the door and following her out of the room.

When they returned downstairs, Natasha insisting she wasn’t hungry enough to finish her breakfast, they were surprised to see Pierre seated in the drawing room. Sonya felt her heart lift a little in her chest when she saw the way Natasha’s face lit up, the way her previous sadness vanished and she rushed over to greet him. With a grateful, tiny nod at Pierre, she slipped out of the room. She wasn’t needed anymore.

 

Pierre didn’t leave until later that afternoon. The flowers he’d brought for Natasha now sat in a glass vase on the mantelpiece, but, bright as they were, they couldn’t match the glowing expression on Natasha’s face.

‘You will visit soon, won’t you?’ she asked hopefully.

‘I would every day, if I could,’ Pierre sighed, trying his best to match her smile. Her enthusiasm and cheer and _youth_ , despite all that had happened to her, was contagious, and Pierre supposed that he was the one who should be asking to return. It healed him, being with her. Made him feel alive again, more than he’d felt in years. ‘But this case — well, I’ll do my best. But I do have work to do.’

This seemed to have a strange effect on Natasha, and it looked to Pierre as though he were watching a flower wilt before his very eyes. He hadn’t mentioned the case at all during his visit, but, it occurred to him, it was more personal to her than he’d previously thought. Kuragin may have been a scoundrel and a wretch, but he was still her husband. The thought inspired him with a sick mixture of anger and pity.

‘Is it true, then?’ she asked dully, no longer looking at him. ‘Does he really have Fyodor Dolokhov working for him?’

Now that certainly came as a blow. Pierre was supposed to be the greatest lawyer in Moscow — and now even Natasha was doubting his ability to win against Dolokhov. He straightened up, expression hardening, and took one of Natasha’s small, dainty hands in his own. His hands felt filthy, like he was marring the purity of an angel. She wanted him here. But he didn’t deserve her presence.

‘I will win this for you, and for Andrey,’ he said, meeting her eyes. It’s the one thing he has to be sure of. It’s not a question of _if_. He has to do it.

Natasha’s eyes became very round and very frightened, and she gave a quick nod, as though unable to tear her eyes from Pierre. ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, voice coming out almost a squeak. ‘You’re a very good man, Pierre. The best man I know.’

Pierre paused. Then, he looked down at their joined hands, and laughed. To Natasha’s ears, it sounded pained, although she couldn’t begin to imagine why.

‘Goodbye, Natasha,’ he said with a gentle smile, then waved and wandered over to the door, where Sonya showed him out with a quiet _thank you_.

 

Dolokhov was finding this whole thing more than a little ridiculous. ‘But _why_ did you marry her? I don’t understand it!’ he’d said when Anatole had first given him the details of the predicament. It was practically impossible to work with someone who had no reasoning behind any of his endeavours other than _because I wanted to._ The law didn’t bend for people like Anatole, and sooner or later, he’d have to realise that.

Oh, they’d had their fair share of mischief as boys back in Petersburg — the bear incident was still fresh in his mind — but he was a grown man now. He’d thought that Anatole would have grown up, too.

Anatole was more than happy to divorce Natasha. It seemed that it had finally dawned on his tiny mind that the girl was more trouble than she was worth. Divorcing the Polish girl was more difficult. For the divorce to go ahead, both parties had to agree to it, and while Fedya was certain that Rostova wouldn’t be able to sign the papers quick enough, Anatole was still paying the Polish girl’s father, and he had a feeling the family wasn’t about to sacrifice that income any time soon.

Anatole didn’t seem particularly fazed by this information. He’d managed to stay married to that girl for years, and only now had trouble begun to arise from it, so he assumed it would obviously cause no trouble in the future. Fedya had momentarily been too shocked to respond.

It was exactly that kind of mentality that got him into this mess in the first place, and what was worse was the fact that Fedya still adored his company, still liked talking with him, spending time with him, even when they were working, although every now and then he’d convince Anatole to get lunch with him and they’d talk about things completely unrelated to the case at all..

Fedya had spent three years studying harder than anyone else he’d ever met, and three more years fighting to be better than anyone else. For the past six years, absolutely nothing else had been on his mind. And now, Anatole had arrived back in his life, seemingly just to throw a spanner in the works.

Fedya should never have let himself be persuaded. What if he lost? What if they lost and he had to tolerate losing to _Bezukhov_ , all over again?

But Anatole was a charmer by nature and the prospect of victory was too sweet to pass up. And so he worked, day and night, to find lost loopholes and forgotten footnotes and anything that might help them.

‘First of all,’ he said to Anatole as he paced his own office, even though they’d already tossed around this idea at least half a dozen times, ‘we need to know if your marriage to Rostova was valid or not. If it was, you need a divorce. Right now. And I don’t know if there’s any chance you could escape a fine.’

‘But…?’ Anatole prompted.

Fedya let out a hiss of air and flopped down in his chair. ‘But, if the marriage was invalid, we can have it annulled.’ In response to the blank look he received from Anatole, he continued: ‘A real marriage has to end in a divorce, or a death, but an invalid one can be annulled. If we have it annulled, Bolkonsky has hardly anything to go on, and we win.’

Anatole smiled, as though the possibility that they wouldn’t win just didn’t add up in his tiny mind. It was infectious, Fedya thought, Anatole’s willingness to only understand what he wanted to. That was a warning. He ought to stay away. But, God, how could anyone stay away from someone like him?

‘Out of curiosity,’ Anatole said, leaning forward on his elbows in the sort of way that alerted Fedya to the fact that whatever he was about to say was certainly not just out of curiosity, ‘if the marriage was valid — how large a fine are we talking?’

Of course. Money, the one thing Anatole had been forced to consider, whether he wanted to or not.

‘If the marriage was valid, and if I remember rightly,’ he began slowly, knowing the reaction this would draw from Anatole, ‘the fine for bigamy is around five hundred thousand roubles.’

Anatole’s eyes went wide and Fedya watched his lips mouth the words _five hundred thousand_ roubles in shock.

‘You can’t be serious,’ he said slowly, his face gone pale. ‘Where the hell am I supposed to find five hundred thousand roubles?’

Fedya grimaced and lifted his hand in the air. ‘Let’s hope the marriage isn’t valid. And, let’s hope your _wife_ agrees to annul the marriage.’

The colour returned a little to Anatole’s face and he gave a dismissive laugh. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Why wouldn’t she?’

 

Andrey was becoming rather irritated with Pierre’s incessant pacing. ‘Christ, Pierre, just tell me what we need to do.’

Pierre looked over at him and blinked through his spectacles. ‘Well,’ he began slowly, ‘no doubt they’ll try to have the marriage annulled. That is, if it’s invalid. Assuming that it is… well, if Anatole convinces Natasha to agree to annulling the marriage — and I’m certain she wants to be rid of him just as much as he wants to be rid of her — then he can walk off without facing charges.’

‘No,’ Andrey muttered quietly. It scared Pierre, how certain he was about that. ‘I’m not letting the bastard run away from it all. Not this time.’

Pierre gave a heavy sigh and sat down beside Andrey, making a jerky movement with his hand as though reaching to take Andrey’s in his own before thinking better of it. ‘There’s always the chance that the marriage really is valid,’ he said half-heartedly.

‘Pierre,’ he said, turning to him, ‘he doesn’t deserve her. He took her from me — and I will _not_ give him even the slightest satisfaction of escaping the consequences of what he did.’

Pierre looked at him for a long time, and Andrey glared stubbornly back. Finally, Pierre looked away, staring at the carpet with a sickening feeling in his stomach.

‘What is it?’ Andrey said quietly, eyes dancing as he sensed an idea forming in Pierre’s mind.

‘I don’t know if it’s such a good decision,’ Pierre mumbled.

‘Pierre, for God’s sake—‘

‘Alright, alright, but…’ He turned back to look at him, chewing on his bottom lip anxiously. ‘If the marriage is invalid, both Anatole and Natasha have to agree for it to be annulled. If Natasha could be convinced not to annul the marriage…’

A smile appeared on Andrey’s face, one that Pierre had grown far too accustomed with of late. ‘I’m sure she’d listen to you,’ he said, and the sickening feeling in Pierre’s stomach only grew. ‘She’s grown awfully fond of you lately.;’

‘Andrey—‘

‘You want us to win this, don’t you?’ Andrey demanded, and there was no arguing with him when he spoke like that.

‘I… I do, Andrey, but… she’s just a girl. She doesn’t understand this, none of it.’

‘She’d want us to win, Pierre. She’d want us to do everything we could to make sure Kuragin pays his debt.’

Pierre met his eyes. He loved Andrey, he really did, but sometimes he frightened him in the same was he enraptured him. That passion, that fire and certainty that drew Pierre in was equally terrible and fearsome when it wanted to be.

‘I’ll do it,’ Pierre said, his heart sinking. ‘Because she’d want us to.’

‘Right,’ Andrey nodded, and patted him on the back. ‘Because she’d want us to.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhhhh five hundred thousand roubles isn’t equivalent to five hundred thousand dollars don’t get too worried it’s not that much anatole is just poor as shit


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which the author reminds you that anatole and dolokhov are still terrible people no matter how good looking they are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is s h i t but i swear things get better in the next one (uhhhhh love confessions and a really great pun that i’ve had in mind since i started writing this)
> 
> also. i’m bad at writing pining okay let me live.

It was to be expected that when Anatole appeared on her doorstep, Marya Dmitrievna very nearly slammed the door on him again.

It was only thanks to Fedya’s remarkably quick justification of their arrival that they were allowed in at all. Once Dmitrievna was assured that their visit was simply for the purpose of having Anatole and Natasha separated once and for all, she finally allowed them to cross over the house’s threshold, but never removed her beady-eyed glare from them.

Natasha had been expecting the visit from her husband for over a week, now. That didn’t make her any more prepared to see him.

When she made her way down the stairs and caught sight of him, handsome as ever, it took all her strength not to turn right around and leave.

Too late, she thought, as he caught her eye and smiled. Her heart gave an uncomfortable lurch. It was over, all ended between them, they’d agreed on that. She knew he was married, he knew her family would never let them be together, and they both knew whatever feelings had occurred between them were long gone.

That didn’t make him any less handsome.

That smile — perfunctory, casual, thoughtless, perfectly natural. It nearly sent traitorous shivers down her spine. It wasn’t right for a man to have that much charm. She cast her eyes down at her feet and only glanced up again once she was sure there was no trace of a blush on her cheeks. Then, with a deep breath, she stepped forward to greet him.

Not long ago, Pierre had visited her. He’d told her, in simple terms, the details of the case she was now muddled up in — Andrey had to win. Natasha agreed. Of course he did. And, if there was ever any hope of him forgiving her, well — this was her chance to prove to Andrey she remained loyal to him, wasn’t it? Pierre had said so. Pierre never lied.

Then, Pierre had told her what that meant for her — there would be no doubt, he said, that Anatole would come to her house, demanding she signed the papers to annul their marriage, or else. The way Pierre had said it, it had been easy to imagine. Anatole was a bad man, and she had to stop him from escaping the consequences. _Yes,_ she’d thought, _I can say no to him. I can do the right thing. I can help Pierre._

All that seemed like nonsense now.

Anatole stooped to kiss her hand as she came close, and a part of Natasha’s brain screamed that it was all an act, that he only wanted her to sign those papers, but the rest of her mind seemed to have gone silent.

‘Natalie, dearest,’ he said, that dazzling smile looking no less false than the day they’d met, ‘how good to see you again.’

If Natasha had been able to tear her eyes away from his dazzling, glittering ones, she would have noticed the man beside him cast his own eyes to heaven.

She regained herself to some degree as quickly as she could, then invited Anatole and his lawyer into the drawing room as politely as possible, trying her best to keep her expression blank. She had work to do.

After the introductions, as though Fedya and Natasha didn’t already know enough about one another through word of mouth, Fedya set to work on explaining what she had to do. It seemed rather condescending to her that he’d spend so much time on simply explaining how to sign a piece of paper, but she listened attentively all the same, not giving away the slightest hint of how she might respond.

‘So, you see, Natalie,’ Anatole cut in, taking one of her hands in his own and gazing at her imploringly, ‘really, this is for us both. All you have to do is sign those papers and we’ll both be free. You won’t ever have to see me again, if you don’t want to.’

He smiled, his usual, cocky, self-righteous smile. The smile she’d fallen head over heels for. The smile she now found she despised.

‘No,’ she said calmly.

Anatole laughed. It made her angry, that laugh. Made her even more certain of her decision.

‘Natalie—‘ he began, patronising.

‘No,’ she said again, more firm this time. ‘I won’t sign those papers. You committed a crime, Anatole Vassilievich. You deserve to pay for it.’ She began to rise from her seat.

As though the curtain had suddenly lifted, Anatole’s eyes went cold in an instant. His hand shot out and encircled her wrist, extracting a cry from Natasha. ‘Don’t touch me—!’

‘Listen to me,’ he hissed through gritted teeth. ‘I can’t afford to pay a fine because some Otradnoe _brat_ —’

‘Anatole,’ Dolokhov said quietly. Anatole turned to look at him for a moment, lips slightly parted, and then he released his grip with a heavy sigh. Natasha, on the verge of tears, fled from the room like a frightened rabbit, not turning back at the exasperated ‘Natalie!’ from behind her.

Alerted by the commotion, Ilya Rostov and Marya Dmitrievna appeared in the doorway. Scowling, Anatole and Dolokhov were shown out none-too-politely onto the street.

‘What now?’ Anatole snapped, kicking at cobblestones on the road. Dolokhov folded his arms across his chest.

‘You behaved like a spoiled child in there, you know.’

He lifted his head to glare at him. ‘If there was a spoiled child in that room, it was her. Who does she think she is?’

‘Perhaps, if you’d handled things a little more calmly, we could have convinced her to—’

‘Oh, don’t even start,’ Anatole retorted, waving a hand dismissively. ‘What’s done is done.’

Dolokhov hardly seemed to be paying him any mind at all, and instead had his brow furrowed in thought. ‘She wouldn’t have come to that conclusion at all. Pierre, or Andrey, must have interfered…’

Anatole’s bitterness seemed to vanish and instead he glanced over in surprise. ‘Is that illegal?’ he asked hopefully.

‘No,’ Dolokhov reasoned, ‘just cruel. But— Well, I wouldn’t go getting your hopes up just yet, but there is a chance that Pierre may not have done his research properly.’

 

Natasha visited Pierre’s that afternoon, still shaken from what had happened earlier in the day. She could still feel the ghost of Anatole’s fingers around her wrist. She shuddered. She’d be glad to see that awful man given his just desserts.

Pierre, while as glad to see Natasha as ever, was mildly alarmed to have a crying girl fling herself into his arms the moment he opened the door. A flicker of doubt crossed over him — had something gone wrong? Had she, perhaps, not done what he’d asked and instead signed the papers? — but he brushed those thoughts away and instead invited her into the drawing room for tea.

After she’d gathered herself, Natasha explained everything that had happened in great detail. When she reached the point in her tale at which Anatole had grabbed her wrist and called her a _brat_ , Pierre audibly took in a great hiss of air. How dare he, the wretch? How dare he place his hands on this angel, this goddess? How dare he —

‘And then I came to you,’ Natasha finished, flustered and on the verge of tears again.

Pierre gave a long sigh and sat there for a few moments. He was never particularly good at offering comfort, but Natasha had chosen to come to him specifically, out of everyone. Apart from the crackling of the fire, no other sound could be heard in the room. This seemed to alarm Natasha after a moment, and she looked up as though she’d said something wrong.

‘Natasha,’ he said finally, concerned at how distraught she looked. ‘You did everything right. You did exactly what I asked, and now — now Kuragin will have to face the consequences of his actions. It’s what Andrey—’

‘I know,’ she said, cutting him off, and he fell silent. If she didn’t want to discuss Andrey, he wasn’t about to object. In fact, he himself didn’t particularly want to discuss him, either. It seemed to him that his friend grew more and more like his father with each day — cold and distant and sometimes downright cruel.

However, it remained quite difficult to ignore someone’s existence when they walked right under your roof.

‘Pierre,’ Andrey said, having entered without knocking or bothering to announce himself — they were too close for that. ‘Drubetskoy told me that Dolokhov and Kuragin visited her house today—‘

Pierre stiffened and Natasha made a little eep of terror as Andrey entered the room and stopped dead.

‘Natasha,’ he said callously, mouth twisted into something between a scowl and — to Pierre’s amazement — an amused smile.

‘Andrew Nikolaevich,’ she said, voice high and unnatural, already rising from her seat. ‘I was just leaving.’

‘No, Natasha, wait, please!’ Pierre called, without knowing why. Having them both in the same room again seemed like an opportunity for reconciliation, for renewal, even, but it all seemed to be doing just the opposite.

‘Thank you for the tea, Pierre,’ she said, her frenzied and frightened eyes on Andrey. Then she left hurriedly without uttering another word.

 

Fedya was beginning to wish he’d never let Anatole into his office in the first place. It was driving him insane. There was something about him, something that made Fedya despise him almost as much as he adored him. He was — he was impossible, that was the word. He was charming and witty and devilishly handsome, and Fedya had known this for years. In many ways, that was why he’d cut him out in the first place. He had no time for petty feelings like that, adoration or affection or whatever this godforsaken feeling was. He was a hard worker. He wasn’t like Anatole Kuragin.

He didn’t want to be like Anatole Kuragin.

And yet, here he was, doing all this for his friend simply because he’d asked. It was absurd. He couldn’t say what these unsettling feelings for Anatole were, but they were certainly nothing like anything he’d felt for anyone else he’d ever known. That’s why they were dangerous. Who knew what could happen from them, if he acknowledged them?

Still. He found himself making excuses to be with Anatole, drawing out their conversations, taking him for lunch, even inviting him to his own apartments to talk. And he hated himself for it. It just wasn’t right.

There was work to do. Whatever feelings his mind decided to conjure up, they could wait until they were out of this whole mess.

 

It wasn’t as though Anatole was oblivious to Fedya’s stares. More that he was used to them. Everyone stared at him. It was what he loved about going out — everyone would always stare, even just for a moment. Fedya, though — Fedya wasn’t one for staring, he knew. So it was flattering, at first. Then it was odd. Then it was amusing. Well, Anatole found no harm in toying with him a little, no matter the circumstances.

However, even he knew he was in serious trouble if they couldn’t find some way to have this marriage annulled. He was sitting in Fedya’s office, propping his feet up on the desk despite Fedya’s countless exasperated pleas for him not to, when all of a sudden Fedya gave a cry of triumph and Anatole nearly jumped out of the chair.

‘What is it?’ he asked, leaning over the desk to peer at the papers Fedya was examining.

Fedya looked up at him with a triumphant grin. ‘If Natasha knows about your wife, and still refuses to annul the marriage, she’s just as guilty of bigamy as you are. She’ll have to pay up a fine too, unless she signs those papers.’

Anatole’s face split into a grin and he wrapped an arm around Fedya’s shoulder, fighting down a little satisfaction at the way Fedya stiffened in his seat as he did so. ‘I knew you were better than Pierre. I knew we could win this.’

Fedya coughed and stood up, brushing him away. ‘Yes. Well — I’ll go speak to her. Explain things to her. I think—’

‘—that I ruined everything last time I saw her, and she’ll never trust me again.’ He gave him a tight smile and sat down on the desk. ‘I know.’

Fedya raised his eyebrows but didn’t respond, and certainly didn’t ask him to get off the desk.

Anatole gave a short laugh at the expression on his face. ‘I don’t love her, _mon cher._ Not anymore. Rich girls are trouble.’

Fedya chuckled at that. ‘ _You’re_ the trouble here, Anatole. Anyone else can see that.’

 

Natasha had been sobbing on her bed for the past hour, and not a single person had been allowed inside. The shock of seeing Andrey right there, before her eyes, had left her shaken and distraught, so much so that nothing could calm her.

When she had run out of tears to cry and was only left sitting there with red-rimmed eyes and shaking shoulders, she concluded that something must be done. She was no frail, weeping schoolgirl! She was Natalya Rostova, and she’d make this right herself.

By ‘make it right’, of course, she meant ‘take a long and lonesome walk in the snow’.

She needed some fresh air, some time to clear her thoughts, to consider what she should do next. After all, she wasn’t a child anymore. She was a grown woman who could make her own decisions without being told what to do.

She _was_.

Dressed in her furs, despite the somewhat pleasant evening temperature, she assured her father and cousin that she was more than capable of taking an evening stroll by herself, and then set out along the streets she’d wandered many times before. Only it felt different, this time.

There was no snow in the streets, no cold chill across her face, only the nighttime breeze that came with the darkness, as the last rays of sunlight vanished behind the city structures.

It was when it was completely dark, and long after she’d lost track of the time, that she felt a hand grab her wrist.

Her first instinct was to scream. Instead, she gave a quiet and alarmed gasp. ‘Dolokhov?’

He barely looked like the man who’d sat in her drawing room earlier that day. The gentle but determined businessman was gone, replaced with something fierce, something frightening. It scared the breath right out of her lungs.

‘Madame Kuragina,’ he said with an almost wolfish grin, and there was something sarcastic in the way he said it. ‘I was just coming to visit you. How… convenient that I ran into you here.’

Her stomach twisted. Not only did it sound like a lie, it sounded like he wasn’t even trying to make it seem otherwise.

‘Now,’ he continued, since Natasha was quite clearly at a loss for words. Although he could see he had her attention, his grip on her wrist did not loosen. ‘I have business to discuss. Oh, don’t look like that, it won’t take long — all I have to say is this: according to the law, if you are aware that your husband is already married to another woman, and you still refuse to annul your marriage, you are just as guilty as he is of bigamy.’

Natasha’s mouth fell open and she shook her head. ‘No,’ she said quietly, finally finding her voice. ‘No, that isn’t— Pierre would have told me.’

‘ _Pierre_ isn’t the best lawyer in Moscow, Madame. _I_ am.’

She chewed on her lip anxiously. He was lying. He had to be.

‘I don’t believe you,’ she said, tilting her chin upward defiantly.

Dolokhov gave a harsh laugh, something mocking and ironic. It made her want to turn and run like a frightened animal.

‘If I were lying to you, you could have me sent to court and I’d lose my job. Do you really think I’d want that?’

She stiffened, confidence waning. He was right, of course — she knew what could happen to him if he misled her. It made her angry. Her stomach clenched at the thought of having to give this man, to give Anatole, what he wanted.

‘I have the papers here, if you’d like to reconsider your decision not to sign…’ Dolokhov held up the papers and a pen with the same fearsome grin.

Natasha’s hands shook. She’d promised Pierre she wouldn’t… but what choice did she have? Her family couldn’t stand to lose however much she’d have to pay. She had no choice.

Her breath caught as she saw Anatole’s signature already inked on the paper. Hands still shaking uncontrollably, she took the pen from Dolokhov and signed her name as best she could.

‘Thank you kindly, Miss Rostova,’ he said with a vicious air, and watched her turn on her heel and leave without another word. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry! the things i previously mentioned won’t be making an appearance just yet in this chapter. also, sorry AGAIN for the very long wait — writers block slapped me in the face and would not be deterred. 
> 
> a very minor TW for this chapter — some child abuse is VERY vaguely alluded to in the first half. i’m not a big fan of abusive-father-vassily so i tend to stay away from that, but hey — i needed a plot device.
> 
> enjoy!

Dolokhov was feeling rather pleased with himself. He’d gotten Natasha to sign those pesky papers, and had therefore more or less solved their problems altogether. He was more excited about telling Anatole than he should have been. Really, it was just one signature, and he already knew he’d win — why did it matter what Anatole would say about it?

The buzz of excitement vanished the moment he reached Anatole’s apartment. Almost the moment he knocked at the door of Anatole’s apartment, it swung open, revealing —

For a moment, Fedya wasn’t even sure that it was Anatole.

His hair was a mess — that was the first thing that Fedya noticed, and it struck him as particularly surprising because Anatole’s hair was never a mess. He wouldn’t allow it.

The second thing he noticed was that Anatole was, unmistakably, crying.

‘Anatole, Jesus, what—’

Anatole was obviously trying to disguise that anything was wrong, although his attempts to do so were nearly laughably pathetic — he scrubbed at his eyes with the palm of one hand, then wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve. It only made him look worse.

‘Did you get her to sign it?’ he asked, voice quivering.

‘I—Yes, of course, I told you I would— Christ, Anatole, what’s wrong?’

Looking around furtively as though someone was watching their every move, he grabbed Fedya’s wrist and tugged him inside, then slammed the door after him.

Fedya raised his eyebrows. ‘Anatole. What’s going on?’

Anatole gave him a dark look, one that unsettled Fedya. To both of them, it seemed as though Fedya was seeing something not meant for his eyes, something wrong. Anatole Kuragin was flawless. This didn’t happen to him. Never. Anatole, it seemed, was aware of this fact, and seemed — yes, he was definitely angry with Fedya, angry at him for seeing such a vulnerable side to him.

‘Anatole,’ he tried again.

‘My father,’ Anatole blurted out, and once he’d begun, it didn’t seem that he was likely to stop. ‘He heard about it. Of course he did. He found out about all this, and he— he’s angry, Fedya. Nobody likes my father when he’s angry.’

Fedya stared for a moment, trying to piece it all together. ‘Wait a moment — why should that matter? He’s in Petersburg, isn’t he? And I’m certain we’re going to win—’

‘I have to go back there, in the end, Fedya,’ Anatole said, falling half-heartedly into an armchair with none of his usual flair, which only served to further unsettle Fedya’s nerves. ‘I have no money. And if he’s angry, and if he refuses to pay— Christ, I don’t even know what I’ll do. I don’t have anywhere to go.’

The severity of the situation began to dawn on Fedya. Anatole really didn’t have anywhere to go. Fedya had met Vassily Kuragin, once or twice back in Petersburg, and he didn’t have a clue who would want to endure his presence any longer than absolutely necessary.

‘He won’t be happy,’ Anatole murmured, snapping Fedya out of his thoughts.

If he’d managed to develop a dreadful impression of Vassily Kuragin after barely knowing the man, what must he be to his kids?

‘Live with me,’ he said abruptly, catching them both off guard.

Anatole looked up and stared at him for a long time. Whatever confidence that had seized him to say such a thing waning, he quickly tried to recover with ‘I mean, if—’ at the same time that Anatole began with ‘What—?’

Abashed, Fedya fell silent.

Anatole continued to stare at him, all trace of tears gone. ‘Fedya, that— I can’t just—’

‘You won’t have to pay,’ Fedya cut in, terrified that if he let Anatole try to talk him out of it, he’d change his mind. ‘I have a spare bedroom. You won’t have to go back to your father. Not if you don’t want to.’

Another unbearably long silence. A repetitive tick of a clock somewhere in the room was all Fedya could here, as though it were counting down the very seconds until Anatole laughed at him, told him he was a fool, and why would he ever want to live with a man like that —

‘Okay,’ Anatole mumbled.

  
Accepting help from one’s lawyer was not something that any man with dignity would do, Anatole thought vaguely, although he’d thrown any dignity to the dogs the moment he’d gotten caught up in this case. No, before then. Years before then. He’d abandoned dignity the moment he’d lain eyes on Natasha Rostova—

No. It wasn’t Natasha Rostova. It was never Natasha Rostova.

He barely even knew who she was.

It was Fedya he knew, down to the smallest detail, like how he’d saved up for a year and a half to buy himself a guitar, or how he carried a pencil and paper everywhere he went, or how he’d give up his life in a heartbeat for his mother and sister —

He chewed on his lip anxiously, gazing up at Fedya, who was staring at him like he’d grown a second head. ‘You want to—’

‘I’d never impose,’ Anatole said, trying to come across as polite as he could and fighting back the urge to stand and shake him by the shoulders, yes, you fool, of course I want to live with you! ‘But I need a place to stay and if, if, you’re offering…’

‘I am,’ Fedya said decidedly. ‘I’d be glad to have you stay.’  
Anatole wrung his hands together nervously. It was almost pathetic, to be accepting help, but…

‘Thank you,’ he said quietly. What choice did he have?

 

Natasha was defeated. Having to say, to Pierre’s face, that she’d signed the papers to annul the marriage, nearly broke her. Not saying it, so much, but the way that Pierre’s expression of delight and affection had crumpled to one of disappointment and concern. She’d locked herself in her room that day, and not even Sonya could convince her to open the door again.

Pierre was defeated. Having to say, to Andrey’s face, that Natasha had gone against her word and been forced into signing those papers, nearly broke him. It didn’t help when Andrey began to get angry. Very, very angry. It frightened Pierre, what Andrey said he’d do to Anatole when he got his hands on him. It upset him. There was no hope for them now, it was plain to see. Kuragin would win, their fight would be lost, and Andrey would be angry. Pierre had failed him.

‘What am I supposed to do now?’ Andrey snarled, and, out of all the things he’d spat whilst pacing along the carpet of Pierre’s sitting room, that seemed to strike him as particularly significant.

‘Andrey,’ Pierre said quietly, and the pacing stopped at once. Encouraged now, Pierre continued, ‘We can’t win. We have nothing to go on. In the eyes of the law, he’s now committed no crime.’

Andrey stared at him, chest rising and falling, and Pierre could almost sense the biting insult about to be directed at him if he didn’t say something quickly.

‘You can’t win, not legally. But you can still win against him in thought. In morals, in beliefs, in dignity, the high ground remains yours.’

Andrey gave him a steely glare, and Pierre was certain that he’d wave him away and resume his pacing, but instead he sat, in the armchair opposite Pierre, seemingly consoled to some small degree. He laced his hands together and rested them on his knee, leaning forward. His mouth didn’t move, but Pierre knew he’d been given licence to continue.

‘Forgive her, Andrey,’ Pierre said with a faint smile, brows knitted together. ‘Kuragin would forgive her. He’d overlook it all. She’s a child, Andrey, a child who made a foolish mistake and paid the price for it. Don’t you think she deserves love? Don’t you think she deserves someone, after everything that’s happened?’

A thoughtful expression came over Andrey’s face, and Pierre felt a stab of triumph.

‘She has you,’ Andrey said finally.

Pierre flushed, taken completely aback and momentarily at a loss for words. When the words finally returned to him, they came all at once. ‘She doesn’t love me. How could she? Look at me, Andrey — I’m fat, I drink far more than I should, I—I’m married, for God’s sake—’

‘And none of those stand for unlovable.’

Hearing something, something so sincere, from someone like Andrey, someone so intense, so intelligent, and sometimes so cold—

It was enough to bring him to tears. Andrey— Andrey thought he was loveable. Andrey thought he could be loved. Perhaps not all was over for him.

But, he was reminded abruptly, this wasn’t about him. This was about Andrey and Natasha.

‘She needs you, Andrey. After all that poor girl has suffered—’ He pushed his spectacles up his nose and gave a wavering but sincere smile. ‘She doesn’t deserve someone like me. She deserves someone like you.’

Andrey stared at him for a long time, and Pierre wondered what could possibly be going through that fantastic mind of his. Would he do it? Would he really propose to her again, make things right, let time heal their wounds and let the Kuragin business become a thing of the past, never mentioned again?

Oh, Pierre would delight to see Natasha’s smile, the way her face would light up and her cheeks would go pink, and the way she’d be dancing through the world for a week at the least, and the way she’d throw her arms around everyone she met, and the way she’d never stop talking about it—

All this had aged her. The childlike lights in her eyes had dimmed, her face had thinned, and she’d grown far more serene and quiet than anyone had ever seen her. She needed someone to make her whole again.

And that someone was Andrey, he forced himself to remember.

‘I suppose… I’ll consider it,’ Andrey said firmly, and stood from the armchair.

Pierre glowed, and it masked any trace of sadness that might be concealed behind his eyes. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a brief conclusion.

A month and a half had passed since the miserable flop of the court case — in fact, there had never been a court case. Andrey, although having struggled to come to terms with the idea that all was really lost, had finally conceded to let go. There was no hope for them to win, and perhaps Pierre’s words had impacted him more deeply than he’d thought.

A day after calling off the case, he’d visited the Rostovs.

A week after that, he had a fiancée again.

Anatole hadn’t taken long to adjust to living with Fedya. He’d had very little to pack, and it was far easier than trudging back to Petersburg to be confronted with his disapproving father. Besides, he liked Fedya, and after receiving the letter from Pierre, assuring him there would be no court case, it seemed that he didn’t have a care in the world. The way it should be. Besides, he’d grown to realise that he liked Fedya, and perhaps living with him would be more enjoyable than they’d thought.

He expected to feel bitterness, jealousy, when he’d heard of the wedding between Natasha and Andrey, but instead he felt only a twinge of happiness. Not for Andrey — he didn’t think he’d ever be able to see the man in a good light — but, despite what the Moscow gossips tittered at soirées, he wished Natasha only good, and the thought of her finding happiness once again left him feeling oddly satisfied, though he couldn’t say why.

Pierre, however, could not say the same.

He should have been happy. He knew that. He should have been rejoicing for his two dearest friends. He’d solved everything, hadn’t he? There’d been no court case, and Andrey had learned to forgive, and Natasha was just as happy as she’d been before all of this.

So why wasn’t Pierre?

As he stood there at Andrey’s side, watching him gaze into Natasha’s eyes like she was the only being on the earth, he knew. Their souls were entwined, their love stronger than war and time and absence and betrayal, stronger than all that. Pierre’s love meant nothing, never would. The only love he could rely on was the bottle, he thought bitterly, watching them kiss and clenching his jaw.

Then, when the bride broke away from the groom, she turned and smiled. Smiled at him. His face reddening, Pierre could only return the smile, bashful and uncertain and nowhere near as radiant as the one she was giving him, but a smile all the same. He did not have their love, did not have the freedom to love, but he had two dear, dear friends. It wasn’t quite enough, but they were friends all the same.

Pierre despised weddings, he realised far too late.

 

Fedya was aware that Anatole had never had much regard for the law. Even as boys, he’d quickly learned to expect that whenever his friend was around, they’d undoubtedly find themselves in trouble one way or another. Perhaps the most amusing factor of this had to do with Anatole’s persistence that he was entirely innocent, and the law and those who enforced it were the ones in the wrong.

Yes, Fedya had grown to expect this. It didn’t mean he was any less surprised when Anatole kissed him.

‘Anatole,’ he gasped, almost in a state of shock.

How had they gotten to this point? Everything seemed foggy in his mind. It had been a triumph — a case, yes, that was what it was. He’d come home at the end of the day, announced proudly to Anatole that he’d successfully won a case for a client, and then, beaming — Anatole had kissed him.

‘Hm?’ Anatole murmured, and Fedya knew he was going to give in to whatever Anatole was doing. When was the last time he’d kissed anyone? And — how could they have ever compared to Anatole?

‘Anatole—’ he said again as Anatole pressed a delicate kiss to his jaw. ‘No, wait, stop, it’s not decent, it’s not right, it’s not—’ He cut off with a shuddering gasp as Anatole’s kisses began to migrate.

‘Not what?’ Anatole challenged.

‘—legal,’ Fedya gasped, completely and utterly besotted.

 

Natasha was seated on the sofa in Pierre’s drawing room, the fire crackling in the hearth, and moonlight just spilling through the curtains, with one of Pierre’s books under her nose. Her legs were draped across Andrey’s lap, and her back was pressed against Pierre’s side. She leaned her head back to gaze at Pierre with a smile. ‘I really don’t know how you read these, Petrushka.’ Pierre glanced over at her and gave her a faint smile. ‘The words are so boring and even the type is so tiny it hurts my eyes to read—’

‘Here, Tasha,’ Andrey joked, lazily reaching over to take Pierre’s spectacles and place them on Natasha’s nose, ignoring the protests of both of them.

At the sight of Natasha in Pierre’s glasses, both Andrey and Pierre erupted into a fit of laughter. Natasha pouted for a moment before bursting into a fit of giggles in turn. All three of them were laughing now, and Natasha eventually had to give the glasses back to Pierre before she developed a headache from the warped vision they gave her.

‘You’re both awfully ridiculous,’ she said firmly but sweetly, leaning over to press a kiss to Pierre’s cheek. ‘And I love you both to death.’

Pierre leaned down to kiss her hair, and she hummed, pleased. Then, she sat up, closing the book and allowing Andrey to wrap an arm around her waist. ‘We ought to be going,’ she said, looking questioningly up at her husband. ‘Oughtn’t we?’

Andrey thought for a moment, then glanced over at Pierre, not missing the way his expression fell at the suggestion.

‘I see no harm in staying a few more hours,’ he said slowly, and smiled when Pierre’s eyes lit up once more. A few hours meant the whole night, and none of them objected to that.

‘I’ll make us some tea,’ Natasha said brightly, leaping up from the sofa and scurrying off. Laughing quietly, Pierre shifted closer to Andrey and entwined their fingers together.

‘I love you,’ Pierre murmured, his voice just audible over the crackling of the fire. It was two years to the day since Andrey had forgiven Anatole and called off their case. No one was unhappy. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more stuff is to come! if you enjoyed this, leave kudos or a like and keep an eye out for more from me soon!


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